Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#21

Post by tyingq » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #14

c141charlie wrote: post #11

True statement. I lost a finger tip in a mandolin making potatoes lyonnaise. It mostly grew back. However, it has never felt the same. It's like the nerve endings in the finger tip throw unhandled exceptions. Some say properly cooked french food is worth it. i agree.

How long is never? I have some cuts with nerve damage that slowly improved (or was it my brain gradually learned that the different feeling is not foreign?) over many many years, like more than 10. No serious ones on my finger tips though.

I had an all-the-way through my palm cut that also went the full length top-to-bottom. There were various "dead/numb", "tingly", etc, parts for 16 years, that all sort of went away in the last year of that 16 and felt normal from then on.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#22

Post by pugworthy » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

Not exactly the tip, but I sliced a good 1/8" or so off my thumb print once with a table saw. I was very impressed that my thumbprint mostly grew back, except for some scar pattern in the middle.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#23

Post by pugworthy » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #3

Did anybody pick up on how the fingerprint doesn't come back? I wonder why that is.

Commented separately, but I had a sliced off thumb print come back. Good 1/8" off the face of my thumb.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#24

Post by Grieving » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:26 AM UTC

Three more anecdotes here: my mother, uncle, and wife chopped off the tips of their fingers (him doing farm work, them chopping food) and had them grow back. The article talks about kids, but the former two were in their 40s and the latter in her 20s at the time.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#25

Post by nvrspyx » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:27 AM UTC

GauntletWizard wrote: post #18

lqet wrote: post #5

I chopped off around 3-4mm off the tip of my left index finger as a kid with a lawn trimmer. 20 years later, I punched a nice groove around 3mm deep into the tip of another finger tip while trying to get tea out of a tea tube [0] (don't buy these things). It took weeks, but both times, the tips grew back perfectly round and smooth, even the fingerprints are back. The regrown tips felt a bit numb for 1-2 months, but t…

Pure wild speculation: I suspect that an awful log of our biological form is fractals formed from chemical gradients, with our DNA controlling the amounts of each chemical, both how fast they're produced and consumed. Included in this are some wild "Programs" were Chemical A causes Chemical B to be produced, Chemical B produces Chemical C and chemical C shuts off chemical A - In wild patterns that eventually form the…

You might be interested in reading up on homeobox genes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeobox

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#26

Post by Retric » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:36 AM UTC

GauntletWizard wrote: post #18

lqet wrote: post #5

I chopped off around 3-4mm off the tip of my left index finger as a kid with a lawn trimmer. 20 years later, I punched a nice groove around 3mm deep into the tip of another finger tip while trying to get tea out of a tea tube [0] (don't buy these things). It took weeks, but both times, the tips grew back perfectly round and smooth, even the fingerprints are back. The regrown tips felt a bit numb for 1-2 months, but t…

Pure wild speculation: I suspect that an awful log of our biological form is fractals formed from chemical gradients, with our DNA controlling the amounts of each chemical, both how fast they're produced and consumed. Included in this are some wild "Programs" were Chemical A causes Chemical B to be produced, Chemical B produces Chemical C and chemical C shuts off chemical A - In wild patterns that eventually form the…

There are several parts embryo development that does operate on chemical gradients especially the initial stages. But like most of biology it gets really complex and isn’t limited to any one approach.

For example as you gain fat tissue you need to increase the number of capillaries feeding that tissue, which in tern needs to link up to arterioles and arteries on one side and veins on the other. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53238/ This happens well into adulthood.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#27

Post by kevinmchugh » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

alexose wrote: post #16

c141charlie wrote: post #11

True statement. I lost a finger tip in a mandolin making potatoes lyonnaise. It mostly grew back. However, it has never felt the same. It's like the nerve endings in the finger tip throw unhandled exceptions. Some say properly cooked french food is worth it. i agree.

As an accident-prone home chef myself, I highly recommend a pair of kevlar "cut gloves" for anything involving a mandolin, peeler, or grater. They're just a few bucks and can save you a lot of tears.

I took the pad of a finger off while drying my mandolin blade after washing it the first time. These gloves are a must whenever the mandolin is out.

(For anyone keeping track in this thread: the sliced portion has feeling, but no finger print, it all looks like scar tissue. The urgent care doc used a gelatin sponge (gelfoam) to stop the bleeding. Dunno if that explains the outcome)

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#28

Post by akomtu » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:46 AM UTC

lqet wrote: post #5

I chopped off around 3-4mm off the tip of my left index finger as a kid with a lawn trimmer. 20 years later, I punched a nice groove around 3mm deep into the tip of another finger tip while trying to get tea out of a tea tube [0] (don't buy these things). It took weeks, but both times, the tips grew back perfectly round and smooth, even the fingerprints are back. The regrown tips felt a bit numb for 1-2 months, but t…

Some time ago there was a post on HN about one scientist who made a simple organism to grow two heads by messing with the intercellular magnetic fields. No DNA changes, just magnetic fields.

There's a way to check this hypothesis without cutting fingers. Salamanders can regrow tails. So get a salamander, cut its tail, use some magnetic field generator to mess with the regrowth process and see what happens.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#29

Post by temp8964 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

lqet wrote: post #5

I chopped off around 3-4mm off the tip of my left index finger as a kid with a lawn trimmer. 20 years later, I punched a nice groove around 3mm deep into the tip of another finger tip while trying to get tea out of a tea tube [0] (don't buy these things). It took weeks, but both times, the tips grew back perfectly round and smooth, even the fingerprints are back. The regrown tips felt a bit numb for 1-2 months, but t…

One of my finger nail was wrecked last year and it looked horrible. I thought it would never grow back. Now I can’t even tell which one had been wrecked.

Re: Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)

#30

Post by frogulis » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

lqet wrote: post #5

I chopped off around 3-4mm off the tip of my left index finger as a kid with a lawn trimmer. 20 years later, I punched a nice groove around 3mm deep into the tip of another finger tip while trying to get tea out of a tea tube [0] (don't buy these things). It took weeks, but both times, the tips grew back perfectly round and smooth, even the fingerprints are back. The regrown tips felt a bit numb for 1-2 months, but t…

> I punched a nice groove around 3mm deep into the tip of another finger tip while trying to get tea out of a tea tube

Out of curiosity, how did this happen? Is the opening sharp?